On Formalization of the Concept of Value Proposition

WINKLER, Marek and Vladimír DOSOUDIL. On Formalization of the Concept of Value Proposition. Service Science. Services Science Global, 2011, vol. 3, No 3, p. 194-205. ISSN 2164-3970. Available from: https://dx.doi.org/10.1287/serv.3.3.194.

Basic information

• Original name: On Formalization of the Concept of Value Proposition
• Authors: WINKLER, Marek and Vladimír DOSOUDIL.
• Edition: Service Science, Services Science Global, 2011, 2164-3970.

Other information

• Original language: English
• Type of outcome: Article in a journal
• Field of Study: 10201 Computer sciences, information science, bioinformatics
• Country of publisher: United States of America
• Confidentiality degree: is not subject to a state or trade secret
• WWW: URL
• Organization unit: Faculty of Informatics
• Doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/serv.3.3.194
• Keywords in English: value proposition, utility function, service modelling, service science
• Tags: International impact, Reviewed

Abstract

This paper presents an original description and a semi-formal definition of the concept of a value proposition, which has been so far used in service science rather intuitively. Our approach is based on utility functions and conceptual modelling techniques. The proposed semi-formalization can be exploited to describe services from the point of view of their (potential) utility for their clients. This description can be used especially to organize a service portfolio in an enterprise in a better way, aid in computer-assisted service composition/decomposition, and provide additional criteria for indexing services in a service brokering task. In order to be able to describe a value proposition more accurately, we present a semi-formal definition of the concept of a service system. We perceive a value proposition as the main input taken into account by a future service client when evaluating whether or not to become the client of the service proposed by a service provider. A value proposition itself is modelled as a collection of values which indicate the extent of “how much” a given service behaves according to a given set of service characteristics. The presented approach is illustrated on the example of a concrete service.